This book originated as lectures for a course on political philosophy that Rawls taught regularly at Harvard in the 1980s. In time the lectures became a restatement of his theory of justice as fairness, revised in light of his more recent papers and his treatise Political Liberalism (1993). As Rawls writes in the preface, the restatement presents "in one place an account of justice as fairness as I now see it, drawing on all [my previous] works." He offers a broad overview of his main lines of thought and also explores specific issues never before addressed in any of his writings. Rawls is well aware that since the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, American society has moved farther away from the idea of justice as fairness. Yet his ideas retain their power and relevance to debates in a pluralistic society about the meaning and theoretical viability of liberalism. This book demonstrates that moral clarity can be achieved even when a collective commitment to justice is uncertain.

First Philosophy: Values and Society brings together classic and ground-breaking readings on ethics and social and political philosophy. Mindful of the intrinsic difficulty of much of the material, the editor has provided comprehensive introductions both to the central topics and to each individual selection. By providing a detailed discussion of the historical and intellectual background to each piece, he aims to enable readers to approach the material without unnecessary barriers to understanding. In an introductory chapter, the editor provides a brief introduction to the nature of philosophical enquiry, to the nature of argument, and to the process of reading and writing within the academic discipline of philosophy.

In this work the author argues that the correct principles of justice are those that would be agreed to by free and rational persons, placed in the original position behind a veil of ignorance: not knowing their own place in society; their class, race, or sex; their abilities, intelligence, or strengths; or even their conception ofthe good. Accordingly, he derives two principles of justice to regulate the distribution of liberties, and of social and economic goods. In this new edition the work is presented as Rawls himself wishes it to be transmitted to posterity, with numerous minor revisions and amendments and a new Preface in which Rawls reflects on his presentation of his thesis and explains how and why he has revised it.

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in A Theory of Justice but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines—religious, philosophical, and moral—coexist within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls' plans to revise Political Liberalism, which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on A Theory of Justice...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." —Times Literary Supplement

The late John Rawls was one of the most inspiring, provocative and influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. In this collection a panel of distinguished political philosophers critically explore the intellectual legacy of Rawls. The essays herein engage Rawls's political theorizing from his earliest published writings in the 1950s to his final publication in 2001, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement and explore a diversity of issues related to his arguments, such as the attractiveness of his methodology/methodologies, and the normative coherence and empirical validity of his claims. In turn, the effectiveness both of his arguments and those of various supporters and critics are evaluated from the perspective of a variety of analytical approaches, including cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, perfectionism, liberalism, and legal theory. This book is an edifying and engaging dialogue with ideas and arguments that have provided the theoretical framework for much of contemporary political philosophy, and a thoughtful assessment of their continuing significance and place within the pantheon of political philosophy.